1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to performance analysis, and particularly to methods, systems and computer program products for CPU signaturing to aide in performance analysis.
2. Description of Background
In many cases, performance testing involves running a series of tests on a particular system. This series of tests is frequently automated so that many hours of testing can be completed with little or no user intervention. At the conclusion of these tests, the performance analyst frequently needs to look at system performance data (such as CPU utilization) to determine how well the tests ran. Correlating this system performance data with individual tests can be a challenge.
Typical “solutions” to this problem involve comparing timestamps with a log file showing when each test began and ended. Another approach is to monitor the tests manually as they are running to determine the start and stop time of each test, or to run each test manually one at a time. In addition, a user can embed an indicator in the same data that the user is collecting. All of these solutions are time consuming manual processes.
While this issue is especially prevalent in performance testing, similar issues can occur in functional testing, or even while monitoring production environments.